Ted Bundy botches an abduction attempt - Nov 08, 1974 - HISTORY.com

Salt Lake City, Utah, resident Carol DaRonch narrowly escapes being abducted by serial killer Ted Bundy. DaRonch had been shopping at a mall when a man claiming to be a police detective told her that there was an attempted theft of her car and she needed to file a police report. Despite her misgivings, DaRonch accompanied the man to his Volkswagen and got into the car. Once inside, he placed a handcuff on her and attempted to hit her with a crowbar, but DaRonch fought back and jumped out of the car to safety.

DaRonch’s attempted abduction was of special interest to the Utah authorities at the time, who were trying to figure out what had happened to several young women who disappeared earlier in the fall of 1974. Simultaneously, Seattle area officials were looking for a young man named Ted who was the suspected culprit in many murder cases.

On August 16, 1975, an officer noticed a suspicious Volkswagen driving around his patrol area. After pulling the vehicle over, he found handcuffs in the back of the automobile and arrested the driver–Ted Bundy. Following his arrest, Bundy was identified as the man who tried to kidnap DaRonch. In March 1976, he was convicted ofaggravated kidnapping, which put him behind bars while investigators tried to connect him to the many unsolved murders in Washington, Colorado, and Utah.

On December 30, 1977, Bundy managed to escape from jail. A few months later, he was added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List, and on February 15, 1978, he was finally captured. He eventually confessed to the murders of 28 women, and was executed in Florida on January 24, 1989.